Today’s Bible Text (Verse) is quite straightforward, really.

Yet it is also just a “piece” of the puzzle Paul is solving … as he reasons with his Galatian followers of Christ. It takes an overall view of our whole paragraph (not JUST today’s verse) to get the whole picture!

Nonetheless … “Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods.” Galatians 4:8

I believe this is a passing reference to the background out of which the Galatian believers were saved.

In essence Paul suggests … When you all were sinners, and heathen ones at that ….  (In the King James Version: “Howbeit then, when ye knew not God …”)

They regularly (naturally) did something back in those days … you served other gods, idols, fake deities! (” … ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods.”)

The Apostle is now (nearly) implying that the Galatians now do know God! That they are saved indeed! (A possibility he really doubts a couple of times here in Galatians!)

So frankly, there is nothing surprising in this verse today. (In a way one could aver that ALL of us … before we “knew” the living God … served (as slaves) other man-made gods and goddesses! 

Sad but so!

Romans 6:16 illustrates the principle. “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?” Everyone is either serving evil (meaning sin which leads to death) … or good (righteousness which is via the Blood of Jesus)!”

But overall, I think Paul (in today’s Text) is saying this to the Galatians:

Once when you were lost … you served idols.

But now you have been born-again … and are indeed free from those old entanglements!

Then WHY, WHY, WHY would you go back under a list of 613 commandments (both prohibitions and injunctions as contained in the Law of Moses) and serve them, spurning the true Liberty you now have in Jesus?

A logical question, a logical thought process … supremely so!

Tomorrow’s verse, the Lord willing, adds further clarity to this line of reasoning.

But at least we readers in the 21st century can pause and THANK GOD we no longer live according to the old ways, but have been made new creatures in Christ Jesus our Lord!

The very fact that we so “know” God is shouting ground!

Hallelujah!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

Really, not a bad testimony … “Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods.” But now, things are different! Very much so!